WORTH NOTING ON TV

ByAlan BunceJuly 21, 1994

* THURSDAY

Hitler and Stalin, a Legacy of Hate (CBS, 9-11 p.m.): CBS News is continuing its occasional series on World War II with a documentary about the two dictators, including aspects of their public and personal lives. Co-anchored by Charles Kuralt and retired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, the program is yet another effort to fathom the nature of evil by examining the character and psychology of the two men responsible for more death and misery than anyone else in modern history.

The show includes historical footage, home movies of Hitler, interviews with experts and those close to Hitler and Stalin, and other material. Not overlooked is the most ironic and distressing part of the tyrants' legacy: the rise of neo-Nazi hate groups in Germany and the United States, and the desire by some Russians, tired of social chaos and economic turmoil, for another leader like Stalin.

First Person with Maria Shriver: Addicted to Fame (NBC, 10-11 p.m.): Fame is becoming well-known lately - the phenomenon of fame, that is, and how it functions in today's celebrity-preoccupied society. In the recent PBS series ``Fame,'' British satirist Clive James took an idiosyncratic and sometimes penetrating look at fame's startling transcendence in this century. Other specials in the last few years have looked at fame and the many forms it assumes.

This edition of the news magazine - the show with its famous host's name in the title - does its own take on the subject by interviewing an impressive list of observers, performers, and other public figures, about why our culture is so attracted to renowned people. Comedian Dennis Miller, for instance, notes that ``The line between famous and infamous has become irretrievably blurred ... there used to be some demarcation.''

The show doesn't fail to contribute its own blurring by commenting on the O.J. Simpson case - all in the interest of analyzing the public's fascination with it, of course.